Offtopic on European languages and dialects

Maciamo

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Minty said:
The most native speakers of English in the world should be British.;)
America's population and land are bigger that's why, there seems to be quite a lot of immigrants in the US who don't speak English well.
Many Brits are not native speakers of English either. Over 5% of the population is foreign-born, and a few more percents speak Gaelic or Scots as their mother tongue. What's more the US's population is 5x bigger than the UK, so even if half of the US population was born abroad in non-English speaking countries (which is not at all the case), the number of native English speakers would be tremendously bigger in the US.

I expected as a counter-argument that someone cites India, rather than the UK. India could soon become the country with the most English speakers in the world, although presently only 20 million of them (more than Australia's population) are native speakers.
 
Maciamo said:
Many Brits are not native speakers of English either. Over 5% of the population is foreign-born, and a few more percents speak Gaelic or Scots as their mother tongue. What's more the US's population is 5x bigger than the UK, so even if half of the US population was born abroad in non-English speaking countries (which is not at all the case), the number of native English speakers would be tremendously bigger in the US.
I was being cheeky, (notice the wink?) I know the population size in the U.S. would have outnumbered the amount of native English speakers in the U.K.
I expected as a counter-argument that someone cites India, rather than the UK. India could soon become the country with the most English speakers in the world, although presently only 20 million of them (more than Australia's population) are native speakers.

This is rather interesting, so the Indians are learning to speak English before their native languages? But many Indians speak English with Indian accents. Why are their accents so strong, if they learn English before they learn their own Indian languages? My husband cannot understand their English, having being born in a multicultural environment I understand just about everybody's English, but my husband can only understand European descendant people's English. For others they have to speak with little of their own accents with fluency in English for him to be able to understand.


My husband can understand Canadian French but he thinks they talk funny, he can understand Australian English even it sound very different from the English he was taught.
 
Minty said:
This is rather interesting, so the Indians are learning to speak English before their native languages?

Never if their native language is English (Only 2% of the population). It's mostly upper-class Indians who have English as their mother tongue. They might also get an education in a British boarding school, then top university...

But many Indians speak English with Indian accents. Why are their accents so strong, if they learn English before they learn their own Indian languages?

98% of the Indians learn English after one of the hundreds of Indian languages.
 
Maciamo said:
Many Brits are not native speakers of English either. Over 5% of the population is foreign-born, and a few more percents speak Gaelic or Scots as their mother tongue.....

True, but, on a point of order ....

The approximate percentage of (Scots)Gaelic speakers as a first language is slightly less than 2%. Far less would speak Irish, merely because Eire is not part of the UK.

"Scots" is not actually a language at all, being merely a dialect of English used in the Lowlands of Scotland, the staple of Burns' literary efforts and fairly intelligible to most English speakers once they get their brains around some of the local vocabulary. The same could be said of "Texan" or (even worse :biggrin: "Stryne" .... !)

Curiously however, Welsh was not mentioned!

Nearly 20% of the population of Wales claim to be Welsh speakers. This would put them almost on a par with Gaelic speakers - except that their numbers are on the rise, when Gaelic appears to be declining.

?W????
 
Sensuikan San said:
True, but, on a point of order ....
The approximate percentage of (Scots)Gaelic speakers as a first language is slightly less than 2%. Far less would speak Irish, merely because Eire is not part of the UK.
FYI, Gaelic is mostly spoken in Wales (and taught at school nowadays, so avout all young Welsh peeople can speak it as well as English). ONly 60,000 people still speak Scottish Gaelic (in the Highlands), but Scots (a Germanic language closely related to English) is still widely spoken in Scotland. Linguistically, Scots is not more a dialect of English than Dutch is a dialect of German, Norwegian a dialect of Danish, or Portuguese a dialect of Spanish.
Curiously however, Welsh was not mentioned!
Nearly 20% of the population of Wales claim to be Welsh speakers. This would put them almost on a par with Gaelic speakers - except that their numbers are on the rise, when Gaelic appears to be declining.
?W????
When I mentioned Gaelic it included Welsh Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic (now almost extinct) and Cornish Gaelic (extinct), which are all official languages of the UK (except Irish Gaelic I think).
 
Maciamo said:
..... but Scots (a Germanic language closely related to English) is still widely spoken in Scotland. Linguistically, Scots is not more a dialect of English than Dutch is a dialect of German, Norwegian a dialect of Danish, or Portuguese a dialect of Spanish.
With respect, Maciamo - "Wikepedia" doesn't totally agree with your analysis - wether or not it's a dialect or language would actually appear to be "up for grabs" and opinions certainly differ. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language

Maciamo said:
When I mentioned Gaelic it included Welsh Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic (now almost extinct) and Cornish Gaelic (extinct), which are all official languages of the UK (except Irish Gaelic I think).
I confess to wondering if that were the case when I made my post. Yes, I can see where you were coming from. BTW - I believe that "Manx" is now extinct; it is my understanding that the last speaker died only a few months ago. Perhaps someone else can confirm this.

Regards,

?W????
 
Sensuikan San said:
With respect, Maciamo - "Wikepedia" doesn't totally agree with your analysis - wether or not it's a dialect or language would actually appear to be "up for grabs" and opinions certainly differ. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language
It's up to us to decide whether it is a dialect of language. But for me, all these should be under the same category (either dialect or language) :

- Danish, Swedish, Norwegian => speakers of the 3 understand each others, but which one is the main ?
- Frisian, Dutch, Platte Dütsch, (High) German => The 3 first are closer together than the last one. But again, it's hard to say that Platte Dütsch (Low German) is a dialect of Dutch or vice versa...
- English, Scots
- Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan => The 2 first are probably the closest, but all are considered as separate languages, as opposed to dialects like Andalusian and Valencian
- Mandarin Chinese, Shanghainese Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, etc. => officially called dialect, but not intelligible to each others, so further away from my examples above.

I believe that the word "dialect" is used too often politically to subordinate a language and its speakers to the main language of the country. If Europe was one big federal country (with smaller states than now), all of the above would be called languages.

In Belgium some people say that Flemish is a language and not a dialect of Dutch, when I personally cannot see that much difference (let's say as much as between British and American English). This is all political, a trick of nationalists to give Flanders its own language. On the other hand, Walloon (spoken by only a fraction of the population of Wallonia, and with very few native speakers left) is a real language, because even I who grew up hearing it occasionally and speak French cannot understand more than a few words. 20 years ago it was still considered a dialect of French, which is an abberation (it's more like a mix of Scandinavian and Italian dialects than French, as you will judge by yourself !).
 
Maciamo said:
In Belgium some people say that Flemish is a language and not a dialect of Dutch, when I personally cannot see that much difference (let's say as much as between British and American English). This is all political, a trick of nationalists to give Flanders its own language. On the other hand, Walloon (spoken by only a fraction of the population of Wallonia, and with very few native speakers left) is a real language, because even I who grew up hearing it occasionally and speak French cannot understand more than a few words. 20 years ago it was still considered a dialect of French, which is an abberation (it's more like a mix of Scandinavian and Italian dialects than French, as you will judge by yourself !).
Oh boy!
You certainly made that point! Yeah! That's a language!
Maciamo said:
It's up to us to decide whether it is a dialect of language. But for me, all these should be under the same category (either dialect or language) :
- Danish, Swedish, Norwegian => speakers of the 3 understand each others, but which one is the main ?
- Frisian, Dutch, Platte Dütsch, (High) German => The 3 first are closer together than the last one. But again, it's hard to say that Platte Dütsch (Low German) is a dialect of Dutch or vice versa...
- English, Scots
- Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan => The 2 first are probably the closest, but all are considered as separate languages, as opposed to dialects like Andalusian and Valencian
- Mandarin Chinese, Shanghainese Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, etc. => officially called dialect, but not intelligible to each others, so further away from my examples above.
I believe that the word "dialect" is used too often politically to subordinate a language and its speakers to the main language of the country. If Europe was one big federal country (with smaller states than now), all of the above would be called languages.

Yes. I do agree with your last paragraph. I would also agree that with "Scots" this is very much at the heart of the matter. It is certainly recognised as a "dialect" among a large proportion of the English population, but regarded with some pride as a "Language" among lowland Scots.

However ... where does one "draw the line"?

When does a ?gdialect?h slip into "languagehood" (... dat's a good woid! - as one would say in "Brooklynese" ...:biggrin: )?

Personally, I feel that the line is crossed when syntax changes, coupled with a substantial revision of vocabulary to a degree where mutual intelligibility can no longer exist without substantial effort and/or assistance.

(How long winded can I get? But it possibly does suffice to separate Spanish from Italian!:giggle: )

Perhaps, in this regard, our Extreme Northern European friends all speak "Scandinavian" (dialects - with the Norwegians, perhaps, having slightly stronger claims to a ?glanguage?h).

Similiarly, I would define ?gScots?h as a dialect. Sure, the vocabulary differs somewhat from my own ?gEnglish?h vocabulary, and the accent is different – but the syntax is the same. It?fs not truly Germanic. ?c. I don?ft have to wait for the verb! :biggrin:

Fundamentally ?c?c I understand it! I comprehend. (Unless the speaker has ?ghad a dram or twae ?c..?h! ?c.. or I?fve had a dram or twae ?c..?)

Where is the line drawn?

Is it by bureaucratic definition, or is it by intelligibility? By syntax, vocabulary or both?

Fascinating questions !

And BTW – great idea to create this ?goff-topic?h thread. I think it deserves it!

Regards,

?W????
 
It's hard indeed to draw the line. If Walloon is clearly a language, I am more divided for Quebecois. Officially it is a "regional variety of French", but it is different enough to require subtitles on TV5 (the worldwide French-speaking channel that broadcasts programmes from various French speaking countries). I usually can understand most of Quebecois, but it has happened while my 3 days in Quebec (very short time !) to meet people with such a thick accent that I couldn't understand them at all !

On the other hand I have never learned Portuguese or Galician, but when I read websites written in those languages I understand 80 to 90% (much more than Walloon !), thanks to my French, Italian and Spanish. As Quebecois and Walloon are both more difficult to understand for me (a ntiave French speaker) than some other Romance languages, I'd consider them as languages and not dialects of French.
 
There isn't anybody who uses Manx or Cornish as their first language anymore, but the languages are not extinct. There are people who do speak both languages as a second language in Cornwall and the Isle of Man (there are even signs for the towns in Manx on the Island). While neither language has the support that Welsh does, there are people who wish to keep these languages alive. To me an extinct language is one that no-one speaks nor knows it's speech patterns or sounds, such as Etruscan or Gaulish. Calling Manx and Cornish extict languages is like calling Latin an extinct language.

A few links for Manx:
http://homepages.enterprise.net/kelly/menu.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_language - note the table on the right
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/manx.htm

A few links for Cornish:
http://www.cornish-language.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_language - again, check the table
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cornish.htm

I hardly call them extinct
 
Last edited:
You are right on this, Mycernius. :)
 
Maciamo said:
Linguistically, Scots is not more a dialect of English than Dutch is a dialect of German, Norwegian a dialect of Danish, or Portuguese a dialect of Spanish.
.

Hmmm...Scottish belongs to the Celtic category of languages and it is substantially dissimilar from English. English belongs to the Germanics category of languages...

If Portuguese is a dialect of Spanish then Portuguese would communicate Spanish with some territorial variant, but that is not the case. Rather, the two languages have the selfsame Latin roots, which entail that there are many connatural. The aforementioned logic utilizes with other languages as well, examples are: Dutch/German and Norwegian/Danish.
 
Minty said:
Hmmm...Scottish belongs to the Celtic category of languages and it is substantially dissimilar from English. English belongs to the Germanics category of languages...

We agree. It's just that you confuse Scottish Gaelic with Scots, which are two completely different languages. It's ok, Sensuikan San is British and confused Scots (a Germanic language) with Scottish English (an actual dialect of English)

If Portuguese is a dialect of Spanish then Portuguese would communicate Spanish with some territorial variant, but that is not the case.

Portuguese and Spanish people can more or less understand each others (unlike French and Spanish speakers). I know a Spanish guy that has family in Portugal and he always speaks Spanish to them while they reply in Portuguese and they manage to communicate quite well.
 

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